Warhammer Age of Sigmar: About Face!

That's right; this post is about that game. The one that ruined everything, is childishly simple, and has all the terrible lore.  It's about:

At least, those are all assumptions that I had made about the game.  I was super salty about the destruction of the Warhammer World - I spent 15 years collecting, building, painting, making lists, writing background, playing with, and generally immersed in the world of Warhammer Fantasy.  My teenage nerd-level had cost me significant social cred, and I felt the loss of a fictional world in a pretty substantial way.  I've played a few games of Warhammer 8th Edition since, and I've even dabbled a bit in some of the systems that showed up to fill the (apparent) void: The Unofficial Warhammer 9th Edition, Ninth Age, Kings of War, etc.  While they all certainly have something to offer, they never really sparked the same interest and excitement as the old iterations of Warhammer Fantasy, so I focused on other things.

Age of Sigmar's start was rocky, and I mostly ignored it.  I downloaded the four-page rules and arrogantly scoffed at the childish simplicity.  An on-again-off-again member of my gaming group hopped aboard and was largely met with surliness bordering on ridicule from the rest of us.  He would still pop into our online chats from time to time, but I haven't played a game with him in years.

It wasn't until the release of the Kharadron Overlords that I thought there was any hope for the fledgling game.  The models were great and were the first (non-Stormcast) deviation from the Warhammer World. "If only the game were decent," I thought to myself while perusing the new releases section of Games Workshop's website.

Something's Afoot in the Mortal Realms...

I know the Kharadron Overlords aren't known for their game-breaking rules, but I'm not really a competitive player, and the models sure were interesting in that they really set the tone and direction for a game that had previously struggled to find its groove.

I listen to Warhammer TV's Twitch Stream when work isn't so crazy that it requires 100% of my focus, and in the lead-up to the release of Age of Sigmar's second edition, the game started getting a lot more in-stream coverage.  I initially thought I'd just turn it off, but some of the recently released Idoneth Deepkin models seemed interesting, and I thought it funny that GW finally had their "fishmen" army, so I thought I'd at least hear what it was about.

I didn't really fall for all the initial hyperbole.  Every version of every GW game is "the best yet"; I'd been in the hobby long enough to know that's always the official line, but some of the rules they were discussing sounded interesting, and those endless spells were way cooler than the domed spell templates I have on my shelf...

We've come a long way.

The real clincher was the first battle report of the new edition they did.  These couldn't possibly be the fantasy equivalent of Chutes and Ladders rules that I knew Age of Sigmar used.  There were nail-bitingly difficult decisions, tactical complexity, and flavourful army-specific mechanics.

Doubt began to creep in... could it be that I was wrong about Age of Sigmar all along?

I asked some members of my gaming group and mostly got the usual derisive guffaws that so often follow mention of Age of Sigmar in the company of Warhammer Longbeards.  But their echoing of what I'd always suspected wasn't enough to put me off, so I kept listening to, watching, and reading reviews of the game and battle reports as folks with pre-release copies of the new edition took it out for a YouTube spin.

An actual photo of my gaming group

I had a couple of one-on-one conversations with members of my gaming group, and I found that opposition to the game wasn't as entrenched as I'd thought - one member, while unhappy with some of the physics behind the game's background, admitted that he liked round bases and would be using them for his Skaven miniatures in the future. He even said he'd be open to giving Age of Sigmar a try.  We had a lengthy discussion about the change from the nihilistic background of the Warhammer Fantasy of yore (where the world was essentially only postponing inevitable destruction) to a newer, shinier, and more optimistic setting where Sigmar and his Sigmarines could go toe-to-toe with Chaos.  It was a surprising evening.

I announced that I was thinking about jumping in, and another group member said he wanted to see how his old Night Goblins fared in the system.  After a few days, that desire to test out Moonclan had grown into a love of Ironjawz, consideration of a vampire-led Legions of Nagash force, and the official verdict of "obsession" from his wife.  I had also made a gradual but complete about-face on Age of Sigmar and managed to watch or listen to 18 hours of the 24-hour livestream launch event that Warhammer TV did.  I was in it and I wasn't alone!

The Great Seraphon Base Roundening Commences

My Lizardmen Seraphon now have two games under their belts (a loss and a win) against the insidious Moonclan Grots, and I can say that I'm having a blast.  The core mechanics are simple and easy to learn, while more complex rules that make the various factions and units unique are generally included, in full, on the unit's warscroll.  The game has provided numerous tactical head-scratchers and the same epic moments that I remember from Warhammer Fifth Edition and subsequent incarnations of the game.

There are things in Age of Sigmar that I'm not a fan of - some of the names in the background could have been given more thought (Sigendil the star, Dracothion the Great Drake, Sigmarite metal, etc.) and some of the mechanics don't reflect what I'd expect in a "real" battle on a fantasy disc-world inhabited by magical creatures (namely combat striking order).  But there were always things about Warhammer's background and rules that seemed a bit off to me - they were just always eclipsed by so much more that was exciting, fun, interesting, unique, challenging, entertaining, etc.  It turns out that this iteration of Warhammer is no different.

A stock photo of Games Workshop employees who may actually be enjoying a game of Age of Sigmar!

So if you, like me, have stewed away the past few years, grumbling about the glory days of Warhammer Fantasy, the Old World, and how Age of Sigmar ruined everything, I'd invite you to give the new setting a try.  It's still (relatively) new, it's still working out the kinks, and it's still trying to figure out how and where different armies and factions fit in, but it's the most fun I've had since Warhammer sixth edition came out, and that's really saying something.